97% of people cannot distinguish AI music, the truth is not as bad as imagined

Recently, the streaming service Deezer conducted an experiment in collaboration with market research company Ipsos, which found that 97% of people could not tell the difference between music entirely generated by artificial intelligence and music created by humans. This result has sparked widespread attention, but the reality is not as bad as it seems. In this survey, participants were asked to listen to three tracks and guess whether any of them were entirely AI-generated. Even if participants correctly identified two, they would be classified as "unable to distinguish."

In Deezer's study, 71% of participants were surprised by their performance, and 51% felt uneasy about being unable to differentiate between AI-generated and human-created art. The survey showed that 51% of people believe AI will lead to "more low-quality, average-sounding" music, yet only 40% said they would skip AI music if they knew it was AI-generated.

Regarding transparency, 80% of respondents hope that AI-generated music is clearly labeled. Deezer has already taken measures to automatically detect and label 100% AI-generated content and exclude such music from its recommendation system. Spotify, on the other hand, has announced a series of policies to combat low-quality AI content on its platform, but has not explicitly stated whether it will label AI music.

Manuel Moussallam, the head of Deezer's research, mentioned that there is a certain gray area regarding hybrid content (music that uses AI elements), which is not just a technical issue, but also one of transparency and ethics. He believes that although the amount of AI-generated music is large, with over 50,000 songs uploaded daily, these contents only account for 0.5% of the total playback volume on the platform.

70% of survey participants believe that songs entirely generated by AI threaten musicians' livelihoods, and 64% think AI may reduce creativity. Despite this, Moussallam believes that human creation will not disappear in the future. Instead, AI will be integrated into the creative process, helping artists create.

Key points:

🎶 97% of respondents could not tell the difference between AI music and human-created music.

📊 80% of people want AI-generated music to be clearly labeled.

🎤 70% of respondents are concerned that AI music may affect musicians' livelihoods.